Co-working Firm GoWork Raises $53 Mn Debt Funding from BlackRock, CLSA Capital

Coworking operator GoWork on Tuesday said it has raised USD 53 million (around Rs 375 crore) debt funding from US-based BlackRock and CLSA Capital Partner to expand its business.

GoWork will use this funding to further scale the business and provide value-added services to its clients. The company currently has two coworking centres at Gurugram in Haryana, spread over 8 lakh square feet with a capacity of 12,000 seats.

"GoWork has raised USD 53 million from a private fund managed by BlackRock's Private Credit team, along with CLSA Capital Partners' Special Situations Group, in a round of debt funding," the Gurugram-based coworking firm said in a statement.

This is the first onshore private financing transaction in India by global investment management firm BlackRock, it added.

GoWork CEO & Chief Evangelist, Sudeep Singh said, with their (BlackRock and CLSA) support, GoWork can further propel its growth across the length and breadth of all emerging markets in India. It plans to have 50 centres across major cities of India by 2025.

As of June 30, 2019, BlackRock managed about USD 6.84 trillion in assets on behalf of investors worldwide.

CLSA Capital Partners is the alternative asset management business of CLSA, Asia's leading capital markets and investment group.

In India, coworking segment is growing at a rapid pace, driven by demand for quality office space from startups, small and medium enterprises and large corporates. This segment is already accounting for 15-20 per cent of the total office space leasing across major seven cities.

To recall, just last week an another Delhi/ NCR based co-working startup GoHive had raised ₹ 2.5 crore from investors to expand its operations. It currently has seven co-working centres in the national capital region.

Co-Working Spaces Startup GoWork To Pump $1 Bn To Open 50 Centres Across India

Gurgaon-based GoWork, a start-up that offers co-working spaces, plans to invest $1 billion (~ Rs 6,500 crore) over the next five years in setting up its 50 shared offices across India.

Owned by Nimitaya Group, GoWork's one centre in Delhi will come up by June while another one in Bengaluru will also come up by the end of this year. "We are in initial discussions with private equity players to raise funds," Sudeep Singh, chief evangelist, GoWork, said in a media statement.

The first GoWork first facility in Gurgaon is the largest is the world with 12,000 seats capacity, an area of 4.5 lakh sq feet and can house 8000 people. Located 100 metres away at Udyog Vihar Phase 2 in Gurgaon the second facility which today is the second largest facility in the world is 3.5 lakh square feet and can seat 5000 people.

GoWork, which offers co-working spaces to corporates, small and medium enterprises, start-ups and entrepreneurs, also plans to start a ‘Frustration Room’ in all its centres, which will help the professionals in managing their stress. One can go to the frustration room which will have sound-proof walls, and shout loudly or can just break things kept in the room to vent their anger or stress, Singh elaborated. As of now, the company plans to keep an old car for breaking with a hammer and safety gloves.

We are also in discussions with other firms to set up a creche facility in our centres, which will support working mothers as well as single parents, he said. GoWork already has Cox & Kings, Lifelong, Impactify, Flying Fur, WIP and Fixxoo as their clients. The start-up, which is in talks to raise $150-200 million with private equity firms this year, had raised its first round of funding from a family group Nimitaya Group.

GoWork operates on 80:20 model of ownership and leasing of spaces, and going forward, will maintain this, Singh said. The company wants to be present in every metro in the next five years apart from other cities and towns.

According to consultancy firm CBRE, the advent of co-working spaces is termed as the next wave of disruption in the office segment.

Co-working means shared office spaces with a new-age work environment. These centres have membership packages ranging from daily to yearly. It has private offices, fixed desks, flexible desks, virtual offices with all facilities of a hotel such as internet, gym, spa, cafes and common areas.

The above news was first reported in DNA.

The idea of co-working spaces has been gaining momentum in India. The total space leased by co-working operators in tier-I and tier-II cities is expected to reach almost 6-10 million square feet by 2020, as per CBRE.

In June 2017, the then Commerce and Industry Minister has had written a letter to all Members of Parliament (MPs) to consider setting up co-working spaces/incubators for Startups in their constituency under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme Fund (MPLADS), informed ministry in a press release on Wednesday.

Last August, New York-based WeWork, the world's top co-working startup by valuation, starts building a core team to enter the National Capital Region and received whopping $4.4 billion investment from Japan’s SoftBank. Earlier in July 2017, WeWork opened its first community workspace in India – ‘WeWork Galaxy”, in Bengaluru’. As per the Crunchbase website, WeWork has raised nearly $10 billion in funding since it was launched.

In the same month, Huddle, a co-working incubator launched its centre and resumed its services in Cyber City Gurugram.

Last July, Delhi-based co-working startup Gurukul has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Indian international cricketer Yuvraj Singh. In the same month an another c-working spaces startup iKeva launched its shared offices in Gurugram And Mumbai.

In October, Haryana state government had also announced to open an entrepreneur centre in Gurugram.

Prior to this, the state govt had also announced setting up of first Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) in Gurugram under Haryana's new state startup policy.

Co-Working Spaces Startup GoWork To Pump $1 Bn To Open 50 Centres Across India

Gurgaon-based GoWork, a start-up that offers co-working spaces, plans to invest $1 billion (~ Rs 6,500 crore) over the next five years in setting up its 50 shared offices across India.

Owned by Nimitaya Group, GoWork's one centre in Delhi will come up by June while another one in Bengaluru will also come up by the end of this year. "We are in initial discussions with private equity players to raise funds," Sudeep Singh, chief evangelist, GoWork, said in a media statement.

The first GoWork first facility in Gurgaon is the largest is the world with 12,000 seats capacity, an area of 4.5 lakh sq feet and can house 8000 people. Located 100 metres away at Udyog Vihar Phase 2 in Gurgaon the second facility which today is the second largest facility in the world is 3.5 lakh square feet and can seat 5000 people.

GoWork, which offers co-working spaces to corporates, small and medium enterprises, start-ups and entrepreneurs, also plans to start a ‘Frustration Room’ in all its centres, which will help the professionals in managing their stress. One can go to the frustration room which will have sound-proof walls, and shout loudly or can just break things kept in the room to vent their anger or stress, Singh elaborated. As of now, the company plans to keep an old car for breaking with a hammer and safety gloves.

We are also in discussions with other firms to set up a creche facility in our centres, which will support working mothers as well as single parents, he said. GoWork already has Cox & Kings, Lifelong, Impactify, Flying Fur, WIP and Fixxoo as their clients. The start-up, which is in talks to raise $150-200 million with private equity firms this year, had raised its first round of funding from a family group Nimitaya Group.

GoWork operates on 80:20 model of ownership and leasing of spaces, and going forward, will maintain this, Singh said. The company wants to be present in every metro in the next five years apart from other cities and towns.

According to consultancy firm CBRE, the advent of co-working spaces is termed as the next wave of disruption in the office segment.

Co-working means shared office spaces with a new-age work environment. These centres have membership packages ranging from daily to yearly. It has private offices, fixed desks, flexible desks, virtual offices with all facilities of a hotel such as internet, gym, spa, cafes and common areas.

The above news was first reported in DNA.

The idea of co-working spaces has been gaining momentum in India. The total space leased by co-working operators in tier-I and tier-II cities is expected to reach almost 6-10 million square feet by 2020, as per CBRE.

In June 2017, the then Commerce and Industry Minister has had written a letter to all Members of Parliament (MPs) to consider setting up co-working spaces/incubators for Startups in their constituency under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme Fund (MPLADS), informed ministry in a press release on Wednesday.

Last August, New York-based WeWork, the world's top co-working startup by valuation, starts building a core team to enter the National Capital Region and received whopping $4.4 billion investment from Japan’s SoftBank. Earlier in July 2017, WeWork opened its first community workspace in India – ‘WeWork Galaxy”, in Bengaluru’. As per the Crunchbase website, WeWork has raised nearly $10 billion in funding since it was launched.

In the same month, Huddle, a co-working incubator launched its centre and resumed its services in Cyber City Gurugram.

Last July, Delhi-based co-working startup Gurukul has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Indian international cricketer Yuvraj Singh. In the same month an another c-working spaces startup iKeva launched its shared offices in Gurugram And Mumbai.

In October, Haryana state government had also announced to open an entrepreneur centre in Gurugram.

Prior to this, the state govt had also announced setting up of first Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) in Gurugram under Haryana's new state startup policy.

With 12,000 seats, Gurgaon's GoWork is World's largest Co-Working Space Yet

India's millennium city Gurgaon is steadily climbing the Indian startup chart every year. The city, which is one of the top choices for entrepreneurs in India to start their startup journey, is soon set to become home to the world's largest co-working space when it comes to seating capacity and the most expansive one in the Indian subcontinent area wise.

Having over 12,000 seats at one location and sprawled over 8 lakh square feet, GoWork will be a first of its kind, technology oriented largest collaborative campus in the world. The next most accommodative space in the world as of today is London's WeWork space, which has just 3000 seats, a number considerably less than GoWork's 12,000 seats. In India, the largest co-work space is also currently owned by WeWork. It is a 2,25,000 sqft area in Mumbai.

Gurgaon's GoWork has been developed by commercial real-estate developer, Nimitya group and is going to go live officially from August 23.

Discussing his thoughts behind building the co-working space, Sanjeev Mahajan, CMD, Nimitya Group talked to The Times of India and said that he decided to enter the space as he was tempted by one of their market research that highlighted the great pace at which the sector is flourishing and how much further potential it holds to grow. In order to get all in the game, they decided that they had to create an entire eco-system based on collaboration, and needed a larger seating space and an equally big area for amenities like breakout zones, conference rooms, gyms, meditation centre. According to Mahajan, GoWork is now completely industry ready as there is a large number of professional companies out there that require these amenities that we offer.

Today, Co-working spaces have become one of the fastest growing segment in Indian commercial real estate space. The country is expected to be home to over 11,500 tech-startups by the year 2020. Since while starting up, most entrepreneurs prefer spending money on developing their products/services rather than building a fancy office, co-working spaces are one of their top choices. In fact, in 2016, co-working space providers took on lease 1.2 million square feet of office space in India, according to data from Collier's International.

The first tenant of the Leed Certified Platinum rated Green Building Campus would be Cox & Kings. The company will be occupying 1000 seats and 50,000 sqft of space.

The GoWork co-working space, which is Asia's first collaborative campus to have internet speeds up to 1 GHZ, further boosts of having a car parking for over 500 cars at each facility, a technology partner zone, a VC / Investor zone, a shuttle service to last mile metro station and the advantage of being just 10 minutes away from International Airport. It also comes with productivity tools like interactive touch screens, Facebook pass, traveldesk, concierge etc. and a Cafe, Gym, Spa, Food Court, Gaming Zone, Frustration Zone and Meditation Zone to distress.

According to a statement given by Sudeep Singh, Chief Evangelist, Go Work to TOI, today India not only needs a co-working space, but a co-collaborating work space that resonates with not just the new Gen but also the Next Gen. He feels their GoWork in Gurgaon is a step towards that direction.

The entry price for GoWork is just Rs. 350 per day per seat, which is in sync with other regular co-working spaces in the country.